The Thirty Before Thirty List

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sheila was definitely giving me the cold shoulder when I returned to work on Tuesday. Given that iciness was her standard setting, I hadn’t thought it was possible for her temperature to drop further. She barely grunted at me when I said hello, she ignored me during the team meeting and she refused the baklawa I had brought back to share. Surely all this wasn’t because I had taken three days off?

‘Ignore her,’ Lucy whispered as I stared at my screen, unable to focus with the weight of anxiety pressing down on me. ‘She’s annoyed because she flopped her meeting yesterday.’

‘Flopped it how?’ I asked as I tried to get through my emails.

‘Well, you weren’t there obviously and instead of asking one of us to set up the room like she should have, she thought she’d do it herself.’

‘Literally everything went wrong,’ Arjun sniggered, joining in. ‘The tech didn’t work, she forgot to put out the water bottles, her printouts were faded because the printer had run out of ink, she was late, like everything .’

‘Shit.’ Instead of rejoicing at karma paying Sheila back, I felt worse. No wonder she was screwing at me. She was going to make me pay for this.

Too scared to take a lunch break or even a tea break, I stayed glued to my seat for the entire day, only getting up when my bladder couldn’t take it anymore. The only non-work-related thing I dared to do was open Noah’s notebook, which made it look like I was still working. Turning over the page, I stared at number eighteen on the list, wondering how the hell a notebook knew what I needed. To be honest, it was something that I had considered in the past but never had the courage to do – or the inclination to spend money on.

But if the notebook said I had to do it, then I would. Besides, these days I was throwing around money like I was printing it all off myself at home, so what was another few hundred pounds if it meant I might finally have some peace in my life?

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly and by five, I had gone through all my emails, actioned what was urgent and put into motion what wasn’t. The tension in my neck had spread all the way to my temples, destroying my skull as it travelled. I managed to beg some Ibuprofen off Arjun and ploughed on, despite the burning in my eyes and the throbbing in my head. Shortly before I packed up to go, a text came through from Zakariya:

ZAKARIYA: Are you coming to Arabic on Thursday?

That was random. I didn’t have the energy to analyse it further, so stuffing my things into my bag, I sent a quick thumbs up and put my coat on:

MAYA:

ZAKARIYA: What are you doing afterwards? Do you want to grab a meal?

Woah. Who knew that all I had to do to catch Zakariya’s attention was fly to Dubai with my cousins and then get one of them to post evidence of us getting hit on by men?

‘Shall I?’ I asked Lucy quietly as we walked out of the office and towards the lift.

‘Do it,’ she replied distractedly as she typed away on her phone. ‘It’s not like you guys were together or anything when he ghosted you. It’s not like going out with someone for over a year but they refuse to make things “official” and keep avoiding conversations about the future.’

‘Are we still talking about me?’ I asked as we stepped out into the warm evening towards the station. It was almost June and we finally had weather decent enough to ditch our jackets.

‘No,’ Lucy sighed, turning to look at me. ‘Sorry. Just got a lot going on.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Not really. Anyway. Yes, you should meet Zak and hear what he has to say, but call him out on his behaviour so he knows he can’t get away with it.’

The next day, I went for my first-ever therapy session, as per number eighteen on the list. I had found a Muslim female therapist online, who had lots of good reviews despite being relatively new on the scene. She also had a cancellation and was available immediately, so I booked the session before I got cold feet.

Having a Muslim therapist was important to me. I wasn’t surprised that it was hard to find one and that those I did find didn’t have years and years of experience. Mental health is still such a massive taboo in my culture. In fact, sometimes it’s worse than taboo; it’s invisible. People think it doesn’t exist or that it’s a weakness of faith and spirit. I needed someone who understood my cultural context and why I behaved in a certain way.

After telling Lucy and Arjun about my appointment, I found out that Arjun had been having therapy for years. Then Lucy told me that she had also had some counselling when her parents got divorced and she had seen someone else after a friend had passed away. I was surprised by both admissions, but I suppose that was a reflection of my prejudices about what someone who went to therapy looked like.

The therapist was a woman called Fareena and she had a home office in Shepherd’s Bush, so after bidding Lucy farewell at the station after work, I caught the bus there. I felt nervous about seeing her, more so because I was going to her home. It felt too personal somehow.

The house was on a quiet, tree-lined street with Georgian townhouses on either side. I walked up the stairs to the shiny black front door and hesitated a moment before I rang the bell, not knowing what to expect. Seconds later, the door opened and Fareena stood on the other side, smiling warmly at me. She was an older lady, probably older than Ma, and wore a plain white hijab over a white blouse and black trousers. She looked sensible and mature and made me feel more at ease when she offered me a cup of tea before leading me through a beautiful hallway with black and white chequered floors, wall panelling and high ceilings.

The office was at the rear of the house and it was light and spacious, decorated in neutral tones. As I expected, there were plants everywhere and a comfortable-looking sofa set. On the herringbone flooring was a silky Persian carpet, in the same brown and beige tones. I felt guilty stepping on it with my shoes on.

‘Please, take a seat, Maya,’ Fareena said, gesturing to the double sofa. I did as she asked and gratefully accepted the tea from her. I needed something to calm my nerves and it wasn’t going to be an alcoholic beverage, so tea would have to do. I took a gulp and instantly scalded my mouth.

‘Thanks,’ I squeaked, as she sat down opposite me on the beige armchair. I looked around the room, at the plants, the art, the books and ornaments on the bookshelf. It all looked inviting but staged. It wasn’t possible to be naturally this neutral, surely?

‘How was your day?’ she began, looking at me with kind eyes. The rest of her expression was impassive yet interested.

‘Not that great,’ I replied bluntly. I think she was making small talk, but I jumped straight into Sheila and work and how useless and incompetent I always felt, acutely aware that I was paying for this session and therefore had to make every minute count. With Fareena’s gentle questions, I ended up talking about my education and how unsuccessful I felt – especially compared to Malik, who was far more accomplished than me.

‘How is your relationship with your brother?’ she asked, writing something in her notebook.

‘It’s normal, I think,’ I began. What was our relationship like? I said it was ‘normal’, but I didn’t have much to compare it to. Most of the cultural references in my life weren’t from my culture. The brothers in the books I read and films I watched weren’t Bengali Sylhetis in London. They weren’t revered, they weren’t put up on a pedestal, they weren’t pampered to the point where they didn’t know where the cereal bowls were kept.

‘What does “normal” look like to you?’ she probed.

‘I don’t know. We get along fine, but I suppose it’s everything he represents that I find difficult to navigate.’

‘What does he represent?’

‘Erm .?.?. Unfairness. Double standards. The patriarchy. You know I only recently went on my first trip abroad with my female cousins, because all these years my parents haven’t let me go. But they let my brother go all the time and he’s younger than me. How does that make sense? And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.’

Once those floodgates opened, they didn’t stop. I started telling her everything. Like how when we were kids, Ma would make me mow the lawn, but when Malik wanted to do it, she told him not to because he might get hurt. It was fine for me to get hurt, it seemed. Or when she would make me stay up late helping her clean when I had coursework due in the next day, while Malik sat around watching TV. His schoolwork and homework always took precedence over mine. He was doing his GCSEs the year I was doing my A-levels and one of Baba’s random relatives came over to stay from Bangladesh. I had to give up my bedroom two weeks before my exams and study in the dining room among all the noise and the bustle, while Malik got to hide away in his room and study properly.

And they wondered why he always got better grades than I did.

By the end of the hour, I was an emotional wreck and used a few of the tissues that were on the oak coffee table in front of me. Fareena was a great listener, although I didn’t know why that came as a surprise to me. It was her job. She was literally being paid to listen to me go on and on about my childhood. But the difference between her and anyone else I had ever offloaded on – namely Dina or the twins – was that she didn’t offer advice or judgement. She listened and asked questions and the questions made me realise things on my own.

I thought I would leave the session lighter, but I didn’t. I felt heavier. I didn’t know that my relationship with Malik was a cause of stress and anxiety. I thought I was going to waltz in there and lie down on the couch like they did in American movies and talk about Sheila, Zakariya and possibly Dina. I didn’t know that there would be so many questions about my family and my childhood. And we had only just started.

Underneath ‘18. TRY THERAPY!’ Noah had added in his now-familiar scrawl, ‘Commit to at least six sessions. You’re not going to achieve anything with only one!’

He was right. One session had unearthed so much that needed exploring, unpicking and possibly unlearning.

‘Same time next week?’ Fareena asked as we wrapped up.

‘Definitely,’ I sniffed, blowing my nose into another tissue. I hoped that once the hard parts were over, I would get to a stage where talking about all the things that weighed me down wouldn’t require quite so many tissues.

The following day was Thursday, which meant Arabic class and I wondered if I’d bump into Zakariya. I had completely forgotten to reply to his invitation, what with therapy, Sheila and everything else on my mind. It was only when I was walking down Fieldgate Street, moments away from the building where the class took place, that I remembered. A part of me really hoped I would see him, but the more sensible part of me told me not to entertain the thought. What was the point? He was moving abroad in months. I didn’t need a pen pal. To be fair, I didn’t need a husband or partner either. Or even another friend.

It was while I was chanting this mantra in my head that I saw him. He was in the hallway outside both our classes, looking at his phone. He looked good, too good, with his work shirt unbuttoned at the collar and slightly messy hair. Something inside me stirred as I ducked into my classroom before he could spot me. As soon as I sat down, I replied to his last message, my mantra forgotten:

MAYA: Hey, sorry for the late reply, been really busy. Let’s grab a bite tonight if you’re free, I’m starving.

That was chill, right? I wasn’t coming across as desperate or even interested. Just hungry and busy. At least, that was the impression I hoped I had given. Putting my phone away, I forced myself not to check if he had replied until after the class was over. This meant that every minute passed agonisingly slowly and I couldn’t focus on a single thing the teacher was saying.

‘Maya,’ Ustadha Salma called out suddenly and I jerked upright in my seat.

‘Na’am?’ I replied in my almost-existent Arabic.

‘Hal ata bil bus, am bil qitaar?’ she asked, looking at me expectantly and completely catching me off guard. I stared stupidly at her.

‘Ummmm,’ I began. ‘Uhhh. La?’ Assuming it was a yes and no question, I responded with ‘no’, hoping to end the conversation.

‘Which one, Maya?’ she said slowly, in English now. ‘Hal ata bil bus, am bil qitaar?’ She asked the question again, as if hearing it a second time would somehow make me understand through a magical osmosis of sorts.

‘Qitaar,’ Nadira whispered to me as the entire class watched the Dunce at the Front. Why did I go and sit in the front row anyway?

‘Er, qitaar?’

Giving me a hard look, Ustadha Salma moved on and I exhaled in relief. Hopefully I would be less distracted next week.

When the lesson was finally over, I checked my phone to find a message from Zakariya. With a mixture of dread and anticipation, I opened it:

ZAKARIYA: Tayyabs? Meet you outside after class.

Oh gosh, I hadn’t looked at my face in hours. I wasn’t ready to see him right now! Grabbing my bag, I rushed to the toilets and touched up my makeup as quickly as possible.

Spraying myself generously with my expensive perfume, I tried not to calculate how much each spritz was costing me. I fluffed up my hair, which had flattened throughout the day and walked out of the bathroom to find Zakariya waiting for me by the main door.

‘Hey, Assalaamu Alaikum,’ I said as I approached him, trying not to let my nerves show in my voice. He turned and smiled at me before returning the greeting. There was something different about his smile though. It seemed thinner and more guarded than it was the last time we went for dinner, which was months ago by then. What had changed in that time?

‘So you’ve been really busy then?’ he asked casually as we walked towards the restaurant, careful not to accidentally bump into each other. Nine weeks earlier, I had fallen asleep on him and now, if my arm touched his by mistake, he jumped away as if he’d been scalded.

‘I have,’ I confirmed, not sure what else to say, or how much about my life I should reveal. We arrived at the restaurant before I could add anything else to my dry response and while the waiter showed us to an available table, I tried to gather my thoughts. If I didn’t snap out of whatever funk I was in, the next few hours were going to be excruciating.

Zakariya and I sat down opposite each other and flicked through the menu. I had been there enough times to know I wanted the lamb chops, daal and naan. Zakariya agreed with my choices and added a meat curry, samosas and chicken biryani to our order, together with mango lassi. If only we could just as easily order the awkwardness away.

‘How was Dubai?’ he asked when the waiter left. I remembered then that he had seen that God-awful video of me dancing like a lunatic in the desert and I wanted to curl up into child’s pose and disappear. How could I have forgotten that crucial fact? How did I have the gall to face him after what he had seen? Well, it was too late to back out now. I had to own it or I’d look more ridiculous.

‘It was fantastic,’ I said with faux cheeriness. ‘We did so many new things and had such a laugh. You should have come!’

‘Uh, with you?’

I realised then what I had said. It was a standard response to someone who had missed out on a good time, I didn’t literally mean that he should have come with us.

‘No! Not with me!’ I retracted. ‘I meant that you should try skydiving, it’s exhilarating.’

‘The desert safari looked fun as well,’ Zakariya said with a mischievous smile and my face instantly burned, much to my chagrin. The samosas and poppadum arrived, with a selection of chutneys and I took a bite of my flaky samosa to buy myself some time and figure out how to respond. I chewed the bite so long that it turned into soup in my mouth, while Zakariya – the little git – waited patiently for me to respond to his blatant dig at my Zumba routine gone wrong.

‘It was the most fun I’ve had in forever,’ I said at last, when I couldn’t chew any longer and whatever I had swallowed was now threatening to rise back up my throat. ‘We did this dance challenge thing, where we had to impersonate other .?.?. uh .?.?. creatures when we moved.’

‘What? What do you mean?’ Zakariya was about to take another bite of his samosa when I said this, but the surprise made him stop and stare at me instead. ‘Other creatures, did you say?’

‘Yeah,’ I reiterated, avoiding his eyes. ‘Pretty, for example, did a snake dance.’

‘A what?’

‘A snake dance. You know, when you slide along the sand and roll around and suddenly hiss at someone?’

Zakariya looked taken aback. ‘No, I can’t say I’ve seen something like that before. Pretty didn’t post it on her Snapchat.’

AH HA! So, he had seen the video on her Snap. I knew it!

‘Of course she didn’t,’ I said smoothly. ‘She only posts the most curated moments of her life. It’s not real.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘Nope. As for Pinky, she decided to dance like a .?.?.’ I wracked my brains. What could possibly look worse than my dance? ‘Turkey.’

‘Turkey? Like the Christmas bird?’

‘Like the Christmas bird, not the country. It was so funny, she kept making gobbling noises and jerking her neck forward and backwards.’

Zakariya smiled then, shaking his head, almost as if he had resigned himself to all this madness. ‘You girls are crazy. What was your dance? No, don’t tell me .?.?.’ He chewed his food while he thought and I took the opportunity to eat the rest of my samosa and a poppadum, which was divine dipped in mango chutney.

‘I know,’ he said, his eyes lighting up. ‘Did you do an octopus dance? You waved your arms around a lot.’

Suppressing the urge to grimace, I was about to reply when he interrupted me.

‘No, but then you were shaking your hair around as well. Was it a wet dog dance?’

Was he taking the mick?

‘NO, it wasn’t a wet dog dance!’ I replied, tersely. ‘It was a jinn dance, OK?’

‘A jinn dance? Since when did jinns dance?’

‘When do octopuses and turkeys dance? It was performance art .’

By the time the main courses arrived, we had finally abandoned the topic of dancing and had moved on to more normal subjects, like work, family and my list. It had taken a while, but I was seeing glimpses of the pre-Snowdon Zakariya again. Fun, smart, considerate, unassuming. I confessed that I was seeing a therapist and instead of bolting at the admission, he listened attentively. Although to be fair, I did keep stressing the fact that I was only doing it because of the list.

‘I think we could all benefit from a professional perspective sometimes,’ he said simply. ‘Maybe if it wasn’t so uncommon in our culture, there would be less trauma that keeps getting passed down through the generations.’

After polishing off our food, we went in search of mishti and tea for dessert. We walked through Whitechapel in comfortable silence and this time, whenever his arm brushed against mine, he didn’t yank it away like I had a contagious disease. I had to suppress my natural urge to slide my arm into his and hold on to him as we walked. It wasn’t something I had experienced much, that desire to be physically close to someone and not in a sexual way, but out of companionship.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I asked when we stopped at the tea shack and Zakariya insisted on buying me a karak chai and a massive piece of orange, crispy jalebi dripping with syrup.

‘Anything,’ he replied, smiling at me.

‘Why did you disappear?’ I asked quietly, looking down at the Styrofoam cup I held in my cold hands. ‘We went to Snowdon, I thought we were friends and then you suddenly just ghosted me. What happened?’

Zakariya looked uncomfortable then, the smile fading from his lips. ‘I didn’t ghost you. I .?.?. I just—’

‘You just what?’ I interrupted his stammering. ‘You just thought it was OK to treat me like that? Friends aren’t supposed to do that.’

‘I didn’t disappear,’ he said, getting agitated. ‘I just didn’t proactively seek you out. If I had seen you somewhere, I would have talked to you. Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends, right?’

‘Friends like those girls you were flirting with in Snowdon?’ I blurted without thinking.

‘What?’ His brows furrowed, Zakariya stared at me as though I had just announced that I had seen him fly off in a UFO.

‘Snowdon? You went off with a group of girls and basically just ghosted me ever since.’

‘What are you talking about?’ he said, stopping so abruptly that I almost knocked into him. ‘They were kids! They wanted to talk about the charity. Why do you care who I talk to?’

‘I don’t care!’

‘So why are we arguing?’

‘Because you ghosted me!’

‘I didn’t!’ Frustrated, he waved his hand in the air to emphasise his point, forgetting that he was holding a cup of tea in his hand. The tea went flying and I yelped and jumped back, narrowly avoiding the hot liquid from staining my clothes.

‘I’m so sorry!’ he said, staring miserably at his own shirt, now soaked in tea.

‘Are you OK? Here, let me help you!’ I handed him my cup and paper bag and attempted to wipe his chest with some tissues I found in my bag. I did it instinctively, but after a moment or two I realised that I was standing much too close to him. So close that I could smell his musky scent. The gesture was supposed to be practical and helpful, but I heard him draw a sharp breath and, suddenly, it became intimate.

Without thinking, I let my hand linger on his chest for a brief second. Time froze and I could feel the warmth of his skin and the steady thumping of his heart beneath the cotton of his shirt. What would happen if I stayed like this forever? At that moment, I wished more than anything that I could stay like this forever, in the middle of Whitechapel, home to thousands of Bengalis. Where any one of them could see us and report our inappropriate behaviour to our parents.

Snatching my hand away, I bustled over to the overflowing bins a few metres away and carefully dropped the tissues on top, so as not to touch the rim or any of the rubbish.

‘All good?’ I asked, coming back over to him to relieve him of my cup and bag. Our fingers brushed and a spark flew through me, making my heart strain against my ribcage.

‘All good,’ he murmured, looking down at me, holding onto my bag for a second longer than necessary before he let it go.

‘It’s getting late,’ I said, trying to inject reality into the charged atmosphere. The way he was looking at me was unnerving; it was as though he was seeing right through my confident, indifferent facade and straight into my soul, where he was reading an entire book about who I was and what I was feeling.

‘It is,’ he echoed, his voice low and husky. ‘Shall we go? I have my car so I can drop you home.’

I knew I should reject the invitation. The atmosphere was too charged and I needed to remove myself from this intoxicating moment, but I couldn’t bring myself to end the night so abruptly.

‘Sure,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady and not betray the plethora of emotions that I was experiencing; everything from fear to elation. As we walked silently over to his car, I lied to myself repeatedly, telling myself that I was reading too much into the moment and nothing was happening between us.

Deep down, I was well aware of something brewing. It wasn’t blossoming love or anything cheesy like that. It was worse, it was a storm.

Zakariya opened the door for me and once again, I was hit by a wave of desire to be held by him. I had spent my entire life being mindful of my behaviour as a Muslim. Intimacy was after marriage, end of. Was I about to ruin it by putting myself in a dangerous situation with a guy who had no interest in marrying me and was about to piss off to another country?

‘Actually, I think I’m going to take the Tube,’ I said quickly, when I was already halfway into the car. Before my hormones made me change my mind, I moved back, narrowly missing bumping into him with my ample bum cheeks.

‘I need to .?.?. um .?.?. stop off and drop this .?.?. thing off to my friend on my way home,’ I stammered as I turned to face him. Would he object? Would he be annoyed? Would he try and persuade me to accept the ride? If he did, I knew I would be too weak to resist. A part of me wanted him to protest.

‘Oh. OK,’ he said, the confusion written all over his face. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening. Insha’allah see you soon?’

‘Insha’allah,’ I repeated. God willing. ‘Goodnight.’

With that, I walked away from Zakariya and his alluring broodiness and headed towards the train station.